Brian Chesters reports listing of an automaton with a music box base and three monkeys on top playing violin, cello and harp, with a link to the eBay item http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1413438612
Will Bennett reports that a British violin dealer agreed to pay £3 million in damages to the estate of Gerald Segelman after a dispute over the sale of a premier violin collection; the settlement followed a High Court hearing and settles an £8 million claim brought by Peter Biddulph. The article notes the impact on the classical music world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt memorabilia and furnishings were sold at Christie’s for $2.67 million, surpassing a pre-sale estimate of $1.8 million. The collection consisted of about 3,000 items in 569 lots across a two‑day sale, with top items including Jonas Lie’s oil landscape Amber Light ($149,000) and a silver-framed photograph of Frank Salisbury’s portrait of FDR ($75,375).
The page documents a faculty recital dated February 15, 2001 featuring Pamela Mia Paul (piano), Julia Bushkova (violin), Susan Dubois (viola), Eugene Osadchy (cello), and Jeff Bradetich (double bass). It includes a track list with works by Mozart and Schubert, and notes the recording is part of the College of Music Recordings collection provided by the UNT Music Library to the UNT Digital Library.
The article reports on a concert by the Ludwig Quartet at Villa Prieger in Bonn, featuring Romanian musicians Liviu Casleanu, Harald Kulik, Gabriel Balka, and Michael Denhoff. The program included Enescu’s String Quartet in G major, Haydn’s String Quartet in E major, and Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, D 956, with Franz Helmerson as second cello; the performance evoked noble calm and profound emotion, ending in warm acclaim.
Patrick Marnham writes about the art scandal surrounding Georgia O'Keeffe, describing the discovery of a lost sequence of her pictures in 1987 and the controversy after it was discredited in the following year. The piece centers on a mysterious art scandal in New Mexico.
This article discusses a 1696 Stradivarius cello owned by an anonymous U.S. donor and loaned to Denise Djokic, who performs with it at an ECMA Gala in Charlottetown; the cello is valued at $6 million and Denise won its privilege by placing first in a Canada Council competition.
The 1735 Guarneri del Gesù Ladenburg violin, once owned by Dietmar Machold and played by Robert McDuffie, was purchased by a group of investors called 1735 del Gesù Partners L.P. for $3.5 million and leased back to McDuffie under a 25-year (retroactive to 1998) arrangement; McDuffie will play to maintain value and cover maintenance and insurance estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 annually.
The Financial Times reported that creditors of a bankrupt Russian bank are likely to decide the fate of Kazimir Malevich's The Black Square. The painting could be worth about $20 million on the open market, but an export license from Russia’s culture ministry is unlikely, possibly forcing the bank’s liquidators to auction it domestically at a lower value. Inkombank held the work, with three versions in state museums and the fourth in a warehouse; a license to export could unlock international sale, while a refusal would hurt creditors.